Tacocat released a new song and video for “The Joke of Life” from their new album, This Mess Is Place. The video is a fun-filled visual focused around the band member’s goofy antics. With lyrics, “The joke is that the joke is already a joke. Forgot to put the name on the envelope. Can’t tell the nightmare from the dream. I was hoping that you might tell me the joke of life.”
According to a press release, the new album, This Mess is a Place is charged with a hopefulness that stands in stark contrast to music that celebrates apathy, despair, and numbness. Tacocat feels it all and cares, a lot, whether they’re singing odes to the magical connections we feel with our pets (“Little Friend”), imagining what a better earth might look like (“New World”), or trying to find humor in a wholly unfunny world (“The Joke of Life”).
The Seattle-based band features vocalist Emily Nokes, bassist Bree McKenna, guitarist Eric Randall, and drummer Lelah Maupin. The video for “The Joke of Life” showcases these beautiful young women looking ridiculously happy and joyful, playing pranks on their dogs and having fun at parties, bars and with each other. They are having such a great time dancing in various places, which offsets the lyrics of the song, “I was hoping you could tell me the joke, the joke of life.”
This Mess is a Place, Tacocat’s fourth full-length album and first on Sub Pop. Producer Erik Blood (who also produced Lost Time) brings the band into their full pop potential but still preserves what makes Tacocat so special: they’re four friends who met as young punks and have grown together into a truly collaborative band. Says Nokes: “We can examine some hard stuff, make fun of some evil stuff, feel some soft feelings, feel some rage feelings, feel some bitter-ass feelings, sift through memories, feel wavy-existential, and still go get a banana daiquiri at the end.”
The band gained popularity in 2014 following the release of their second album NVM, engineered by Conrad Uno. Tacocat addresses feminist themes in many of their songs. The song “Hey Girl” uses sarcasm to mock street harassment, and the song “This is Anarchy” mocks the politics of white male skinheads. The song “Crimson Wave” is a period-positive beach anthem featuring red imagery and humorous menstruation metaphors.
Lead singer Emily Nokes says, “I love how this song turned out. This is also one of my favorite concepts on the album — the joke is that the joke is already a joke. You know when something is so unbelievable, in a bad way, that it can’t even be satirized because irony falls short of the real thing? Like we’ve entered a twilight zone of perpetual horror and now we’re just… adapting to it. Because what else are you going to do?”
May 09 – St. Paul, MN – Turf Club
May 10 – Milwaukee, WI – Cactus Club
May 11 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
May 12 – Grand Rapids, MI – The Pyramid Scheme
May 13 – Pittsburgh, PA – Club Cafe
May 15 – Cambridge, MA – The Sinclair
May 17 – Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg
May 18 – Philadelphia, PA – Boot & Saddle
May 19 – Washington, D.C. – U Street Music Hall
May 21 – Durham, NC – The Pinhook
May 22 – Atlanta, GA – The Drunken Unicorn
May 23 – Nashville, TN – The High Watt
May 24 – St. Louis, MO – Off Broadway
May 25 – Kansas City, MO – The Record Bar
Jun. 08 – Seattle, WA – The Showbox at the Market
Jun. 12 – Spokane, WA – The Bartlett
Jun. 13 – Boise, ID – Neurolux
Jun. 14 – Salt Lake City, UT – Kilby Court
Jun. 15 – Denver, CO – Larimer Lounge
Jun. 17 – Dallas, TX – Club Dada
Jun. 18 – Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall
Jun. 19 – Austin, TX – Barracuda
Jun. 21 – Sante Fe, NM – Meow Wolf
Jun. 22 – Phoenix, AZ – Valley Bar
Jun. 23 – San Diego, CA – The Casbah
Jun. 25 – Los Angeles, CA – The Bootleg Theater
Jun. 26 – San Francisco, CA – The Chapel
Jun. 28 – Portland, OR – Aladdin Theater
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